Does Your Child Know How Hungry She Is?

The idea that kids know how hungry or full they are is a given. But it’s just not true.

Although most children are born with an innate sense of how hungry they are, parents — and the rest of society — mess this up pretty quickly. As a result, we’ve raised a bunch of kids who are disconnected from their hunger and satiety. (I’m exhibit number one. You may be exhibit number two.) I’ve tried hard to do differently with my daughter.

It’s no surprise how this happens. We make kids finish their meals, regardless of how hungry they are. And even if we don’t do that, most of us encourage a few more bites, especially of vegetables and especially as a condition of eating dessert.

In the past few posts I have been writing about how children learn about fat, fat bias, and how kids internalize societal standards about weight at a very young age. Well, it turns out, kids lose their innate ability to feel their hunger and fullness at a very early age too. Sometimes by the age of 3.

If you struggle with this, you’re not alone. And it’s not your fault. This is a societal/systemic problem. It’s related to our obsession with nutrition, our obsession with growth charts and our obsession with body image.

But it’s worth thinking about this now, during the Holiday Eating Season.

While public health officials worry about childhood obesity, parents of young children, it turns out, worry more about getting enough food into their kids. Is there a connection? Let’s just say that you can’t feed kids one way when they’re young and expect them to eat another way as they grow up.

The good news is that it is possible to teach children to get back in touch with their hunger and satiety.

Not only that, it’s pretty easy to do.

The better news is that working on hunger and satiety helps under-eaters as much as overeaters.

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Comments

Great information and guidance, Dr. Rose! Unlike most parents, I struggle with kids who want more food. I don’t want to make food an issue but it often becomes one. I try to focus on hunger signals and explain that they’ll feel sick if they overeat. This is an important topic for parents with picky eaters and foodies alike.

Thanks for sharing your situation. Many parents struggle with kids who want more food. You’re not alone! It’s just that during the toddler years, parents worry about getting enough food into their kids. For some, there’s a relationship between the two. For others, their kids were born “eaters.”

Try using this exercise with your kids and let me know how it goes. And even though it’s hard to do, let your kids feel sick from overeating. It’s the only way they’ll learn the connection. Warning them but then stopping them before they overeat makes the lesson abstract and something “mom worries about.” Not something that’s real. I’m not saying you do this. Just pointing it out.

Julie, and Dina, thank you both! Julie my daughter also wants “more food” and one of the things that makes me feel less anxious about this complaint is that many parents say that there children do too. One of the helpful pieces of advice I have received, along with Dina’s, is that sometimes they are more bored, and with some redirection and letting them know that whatever else they want to eat we can save it for later, they tend to do fine with. Also getting them out of the eating environment once they are complaining of this and I am certain that she cannot be hungry.

one of the unhelpful responses I used to do was counter her hungrines and challenge it. That made it worse and I felt myself getting more frustrated. So in these various ways I tend to roll with the resistance and it makes it much less stressful and less of a power struggle and a smaller emotional deal, for both of us.